Gentlemen, have a great dive.
DSV Alvin, also known as Deep Submergence
Vehicle 2, is a deep-sea submersible owned
by the United States Navy and operated by
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Seal the hatch.
Carrying two passengers and a pilot on each dive,
the sub has taken thousands of explorers
to depths once thought unreachable.
Every time I get to dive in Alvin, I
see something I ve never seen before.
I get to experience that environment
firsthand, and it s often led to
big discoveries, not only for my
research, but other people as well.
For more than 50 years, the sub has
traveled to extraordinary places,
capturing the world s imagination and heartbreak.
In 1986, it dove on the Titanic, deploying the
Remotely Operated Vehicle, Jason Jr., and
returning with striking imagery of the site.
And following the Deepwater
Horizon disaster in 2010,
Alvin aided scientists investigating the
impacts of the oil spill on deep-sea corals.
What sets Alvin apart is its
productivity. It s incredibly
well supported by the community of
researchers that use the vehicle
and the National Science Foundation
and the Office of Naval Research.
Of its thousands of dives since 1964, there is one
often held as the most significant the discovery
of hydrothermal vents near the Galapagos Islands.
These alien-like deep-sea communities where
life thrives without the light of the sun were
unknown to humankind before Alvin visited them.
The discovery of vents changed the way
we think about life. And Alvin was really
the workhorse that did all that work in 1977.
If you look at it on a map
it looks like a blue expanse,
but down on the bottom it s a different planet.
Now, Alvin is poised to continue
its revolutionary scientific work.
With a new set of upgrades and deeper depth
rating, the possibilities are endless.
Alvin will be able to map things
that we ve never seen before
that otherwise have not been
accessible to human discovery.
How has the research conducted
with the Alvin submersible
impacted our understanding of the oceans? And
what can Alvin s incredible history of discovery,
inspiration, and daring tell us
about life on Earth and beyond?